My blog is about security and optimization of Windows system, it will be useful to beginners who needs informations to secure & optimize their system or more advanced users who need to know more about security softwares.

Online Armor Premium (aka OAP) includes an "Advanced Mode" and a "banking Mode"

Advanced Mode:

Advanced mode is for more advanced computer users that wish to exercise more control over programs. Switching to Advanced mode opens up new options for the Firewall in the Online Armor Control Panel, and adds additional information to Firewall pop-ups about the addresses, port, protocol, and country of the connection being made. The File and Registry Shields also become available in Advanced Mode.

Any configuration changes made in Advanced mode will still function while in Standard mode; they will simply be hidden in the Online Armor Control Panel.

Banking Mode

By using this mode, you will be able to visit your banking/shopping sites safely

Banking Mode is designed to secure your online banking. When you enable Banking Mode, Online Armor will only allow your computer to connect to Trusted or Protected domains. This ensures that you cannot be tricked into visiting a fraudulent website designed to steal your login information, and that your computer cannot send information to any other sites.

Online Armor uses a list of trusted sites maintained by the Online Armor team and any Trusted or Protected websites you define in the Domains section of Online Armor. Any connections to sites that are not on these lists will be automatically blocked while in Banking Mode.

When you first install Online Armor you should try changing to Banking Mode and going to the bank and/or financial institution websites that you visit. If you cannot connect to any site, or page on these sites, then you can add them to the Domains list.

Online Armor's Bank site Learn feature automatically adds all relevant domains from websites like online banking. To use this feature, make sure you are in either Standard or Advanced mode (not Banking mode or the system wide Learning mode) and then add the main domain of your bank (e.g. citibank.com) to the Domains list as Protected or Trusted, right-click it, and select Learn. This will open up an Online Armor browser window to the selected website.

Simply log in and use the website as you normally would; any domains and subdomains encountered will be automatically allowed and added to the Domains list, so the next time that you place Online Armor in Banking Mode it will work as expected.

1- Firewall

The advanced Firewall mode in OAP gives you a lot more control over your inbound/outbound connections

Advanced mode is intended for advanced users that wish to exercise more control over how their computer can connect to the internet. In Advanced mode you will see pop-ups for Unknown programs that attempt to access the internet, and information on the protocol, the remote address and domain names associated with it, the port being used, and country of the connection being attempted.

Online Armor will automatically allow Trusted programs to access the internet by default to minimize the amount of pop-ups that you see. This option can be changed in the Options, under the Firewall tab.

- Restrictions: The Restrictions tab allows you to restrict connections by IP address/range and by Country.

- Blacklists: Online Armor
supports the import of Blacklists in the "Bluetack" format. Online Armor
will block any connections to or from the IP addresses on the
Blacklist(s).

- ICMP: The ICMP tab allows you to configure Online Armor to Allow, Deny, and Log the ICMP messages that you wish.

- Restricted Ports: The
Restricted Ports list allows you to restrict ports used for internet
connections, regardless of the Trusted status of any individual program.
These ports will also be restricted for local connections if the
interface for the LAN is Not Trusted or for individual LAN computers
based on their status in the Computers list.

2- Files and Registry

One important piece of OAP prevention capacity.

Online Armor's File and Registry Shield's protect your sensitive files and registry keys from being read, deleted or modified by malicious programs. In addition the File and Registry Shield's protect against the creation of files or registry keys in user-selected locations.

If an Unknown program tries to create, delete, modify or read a file or registry key in a location that matches a rule, Online Armor will alert you to this behavior, giving you a chance to Allow or Block it.

Trusted programs are Allowed to take these actions by default and Not Trusted programs are Blocked from taking these actions by default.

Note: To access the File and Registry Shield's you must be working in Advanced mode. Online Armor's File and Registry Shield's are not activated by default and must be enabled from the Options tab

3- Options

there the added options available in Advanced Mode

Firewall options

- Autoconfigure trusted programs (Advanced mode only)
– Allows you to change whether Online Armor will automatically create
rules to allow ports and protocols as programs use them. Disabling this
option will cause Online Armor to pop-up any time a program uses a new
port or protocol not covered by an existing rule.

- Additional debug info (Advanced mode only) –
Logs additional information needed for debugging firewall programs by
the Online Armor development team. If you are gathering logs to send the
Online Armor team to help resolve a problem, then please enable this
option.

- Enable Windows Firewall when OA is disabled (Advanced mode only)
– When ticked, this option will ensure that Windows Firewall is
switched on, if you choose to shutdown Online Armor or untick the
Firewall component on the General section.

- Uninstall Firewall (Advanced mode only) – Allows
you to remove the Firewall component of Online Armor while keeping the
rest of the protection. You can use this option if the Firewall
conflicts with another program or if you are using another firewall.

Final Note:

The Premium version stand without shame within the top 5 firewall
existing, its granularity and simplicity of use , made me rate it 5/5.